If you want to guess at how long SAA will be around - look back at how
long the airlines of newly independent African countries survived. Some
were supported as long as the country as a whole was doing OK and only
got chopped when it was just about all over. Some slid into corruption
and then fell apart from the inside.
The simple fact is that SAA is making it's first bid to slim down and
'get real' by starting Mango. The plot is to slide most of the domestic
off that way and clear the books of the a/c and get pilots off higher
wages onto lower wage contracts. They will either accept a job rather
than no job or they will leave the country. There will not be a sudden
spurt of new jobs at the old pay levels.
However, the problem with the Mango solution is demonstrated, once
again, by history. Many other legacy carriers tried to play this game
and almost all failed. I would say ALL failed but I do not have the full
facts. What is clear is that most attempts to run a LoCo by legacy
carriers failed and they got sold off. Expect that to happen to Mango.
What then for SAA? It will depend upon how much of the problem they
have solved. With high fuel costs and viscious competition, I expect
that they will still be in the dwang in five years time. The
international will continue to be the game to be in and I expect that
will hold up, even if Nationwide do expand their LGW operation and with
the FlyGlobespan MAN route working well. The demand from Europe as a
whole will be around for another 15 years or more.
SAA will certainly be around for 2010 and, I expect, till 2015 in it's
present form.